In an effort to reach the entire population in next year's U.S. census, the Census Bureau plans to spend US$250 million on promoting participation in the population survey. Most of this money will be dedicated to advertising across the media board, utilising both traditional and social media platforms, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The media blitz is specifically targeted at traditionally hard to reach demographics. Almost a quarter of the funding is aimed at news outlets whose target audiences are the Asian, black and Hispanic populations. $26 million will be spent on the Asian and Hispanic populations utilizing television, radio and online media. With another $10 million devoted to black community, which typically is undercounted, Federal News Radio reported. "A year from now, the populace will have seen and heard more ads in national and local media than in any prior census," said Thomas L. Mesenbourg, Census Bureau's acting director, according to the Washington Post.

The Census Bureau has called on the help of communications firm DraftFCB for the application of the advertising plan, to ensure a effective message will reach target audiences, Federal News Radio reported.

The first census advertising will begin this summer and will allow officials to assess the success of the media campaign by how many households return their mail-in-census forms in the first phase of the 2010 Census.